Barcelona manager, Ernesto Valverde is hopeful that captain, Andres Iniesta will stay at the club following reports that the midfielder has offers on the table to move to China at the end of the season.
Barcelona daily Sport claimed on Friday that Iniesta has an offer to join Tianjin Quanjian in the Chinese Super League, worth as much as 35 million euros ($43.5 million) per season.
Valverde, however, said at a press conference on Friday ahead of tomorrow’s LaLiga clash against Eibar.
“I can’t comment on every story in every newspaper.
“This has not happened, and we want Andres to stay, to keep scoring and creating goals for us,” he said.
Asked if he was worried about more of his players being tempted to accept mega-bucks offers from the Far East, Valverde said: “At the moment it has only happened with Mascherano and I am not going to make myself go crazy thinking about these things before they have happened.”
He added: “We have not got time to think about these just now given all that we are playing for.”
Meanwhile, Iniesta signed a “lifetime contract” with the Catalan club last October.
The Spaniard will be 34-year-old in May and the LaLiga leaders’ move to sign Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool last month in a 160 million-euro deal indicated that they are planning for a future without him.
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